Is there really animal intelligence? A philosophical review.

Abstract

In the context of philosophical research on animal intelligence, there are different traditions that deny that nonhuman animals are intelligent. In this article we mention some of these traditions, such as Cartesian mechanism and behaviorism. However, we will focus our attention on the proposals of the analytical philosophers John McDowell and Donald Davidson as representative of this philosophical tradition. His main idea is that by not having a language like that of human beings, the rest of the animals cannot be rational and, therefore, not intelligent either. Our position is that such an analytical tradition flatly ignores the scientific and philosophical evidence against it. We will give some relevant data in favor of animal intelligence. In addition, we will give an account of a trend that is manifested with increasing force among ethologists according to which there is a continuity between animal and human intelligence, considering the latter as the result of an evolutionary process and, therefore, as a result of a series of skills acquired by different species at some point in their formation.